This blog is for online marketers who work with e-commerce, web, online sales, social media, social commerce and the Internet in general. You can find articles about the latest surveys and reports on e-commerce plus get help on how to improve your online sales and conversion rate.

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19 Sep 2010

You might have asked yourself or somebody else: “What is a Facebook fan actually worth?” And nobody has been able to answer this question. Until now! The answer is somewhere around €104 (£87). An average Facebook fan of your company is worth about €104 (£87), according to a report from Syncapse. However, if you work intelligently with social media and have done as described in my earlier blogs (eg How to Become a Social Media Champion) and if you have to avoided Social Media pitfalls the value of a Facebook fan can be quite high. But if you haven’t got a clue what’s going on social media wise the value is almost insignificant.

The report is one of the first to try to put an actual amount on the value of a Facebook fan which isn’t easy and can only be an estimate. However, it's interesting to see that the daily work with social media is probably worth the effort - and then some.

An average fan may participate with a brand ten times a year and will make one recommendation. But, an active fan may participate thirty times and make ten recommendations. The impact this has on fan value is quite dramatic. The report mentions that in the case of Coca-Cola, the best case for fan value reaches €243 (£204) which more 225 per cent more than the average value of a Facebook fan.

If a customer is fan of a product or service they are 28 per cent more likely than non-fans to continue using the brand. Fans are 41 per cent more likely than non-fans to recommend a product to their family and friends. This means that a company must try to move its Facebook fans up the value ladder that is trying to move the average fan value to the active end of the range.

Not only in terms of recommendations are Facebook fans more valuable. Fans buys more on average than do non-fans. Fans are on average spending €55 (£46) per year more than people who are not fans of the product. McDonald’s has the largest variability. Fans of McDonald’s are spending €122 (£102) more during a year than non-fans.

Product spending: Fans vs non-fans:

Company

Fans

Non-fans

Nokia

€131 (£110)

€49 (£41)

BlackBerry

€101 (£85)

€75 (£63)

Motorola

€122 (£102)

€53 (£44)

Secret

€68 (£57)

€41 (£35)

Gillette

€98 (£82)

€49 (£59)

Axe

€78 (£65)

€47 (£40)

Dove

€108 (£91)

€44 (£37)

Victoria’s Secret

€175 (£147)

€117 (£98)

Adidas

€96 (£80)

€56 (£47)

Nike

€157 (£131)

€54 (£64)

Coca-Cola

€146 (£122)

€93 (£77)

Oreo

€54 (£64)

€43 (£36)

Skittles

€98 (£82)

€34 (£40)

Nutella

€78 (£65)

€41 (£34)

Red Bull

€87 (£73)

€38 (£32)

Pringles

€102 (£85)

€47 (£39)

Playstation

€144 (£120)

€93 (£78)

Xbox

€133 (£111)

€107 (£89)

Starbucks

€180 (£151)

€85 (£71)

McDonald’s

€237 (£198)

€115 (£96)

Source: Syncapse (September 2010)

The conclusion is quite obvious: The companies which are engaging its Facebook fans are receiving a generous ROI. Companies which aren't engaging its fans aren't.

15 Sep 2010

If you have a mobile phone with an Android operating system (OS) you are more likely to click on an advertisement within an app than other smart phone users. A white paper from Nielsen shows that the phone's operating system apparently has a lot to do with our tendency to click on a banner ad in an app.
Clicked on an advertisement within an app:

System

Yes

No

Android

33%

67%

Microsoft Windows Mobile

29%

71%

Apple iPhone OS

26%

74%

Other

24%

76%

Palm OS

22%

78%

Blackberry

15%

85%

Source: Nielsen (September 2010)

This means that it might be a better idea to make an ad for phones with Android OS instead of making a banner for an iPhone. Naturally this depends on what you are selling. If you are selling the new iPhone it might be a good idea to target iPhone users. Naturally.

13 Sep 2010

Social networking has beaten searching as American Internet surfers number no. 1 activity. Facebook has, according to ComScore, replaced Google as the most visited page. Americans spent 41.1 million minutes on Facebook in August which is about 9.9 per cent of their Internet surfing minutes for the month, Google (including Youtube, Gmail etc.) is surpassing 39.8 million minutes or 9.6 per cent surfing minutes.

In August, last year American Internet users had spent less than 5 per cent of their surfing time on Facebook and close to the same percentage on Google. Three years ago, in 2007, Facebook had less than 2 per cent of American web surfers’ total minutes while Google accounted for less than 4 percent and Yahoo for over 12 percent. But things has changed dramatically since then.

Today, the third most popular website is Yahoo which accounts for 37.7 million minutes or 9.1 per cent. Back in July, it was the first timeYahoo overtaken by Facebook.

9 Sep 2010

Women are more social than men. At least when using the internet. A whitepaper from ComScore shows that women engage in more social activities or visits more social networks than men when they go online.

If we compare women’s to men's online usage it's clear that women use far more time on social media.
Share of time spent on social activities:

Category

Women

Men

Social Networking

16.3%

11.7%

Instant Messenger

11.3%

10.4%

E-mails

7.7%

6.8%

Communities

2.2%

1.8%

Blogs

0.9%

0.8%

Source: Media Metrix Worldwide (April 2010)

It's the same all over the world. It doesn't matter which region, women consistently engage in more social activities online than men. Without exception. In U.S.A. nearly 56 per cent of adult women say they go online to stay in touch, compared to 46 per cent of adult men. On a global scale, social activities like social networking, instant messaging and e-mails are the no.1 reason for women to go online.

In Latin America women spend up to 52 per cent of their total time online on social activities. Their most preferred activity is instant messaging (24 per cent) followed by the social networking (18 per cent) and e-mails (10 per cent). However, women in Asia Pacific only spend about 20 per cent of their total time online on these activities.
Adults' share of time spent on social networking, instant messaging and e-mail (% of total minutes):

Region

Women

Men

World Wide

33%

27%

Latin America

52%

45%

Europe

37%

30%

North America

30%

25%

Asia Pacific

20%

17%

Source: Media Metrix Worldwide (March 2010)

Globally, women spend an average of 16.3 per cent of their online time on social networks (April 2010) compared to only 11.7 per cent for the men. The time spent on social networks has been increasing over the past year and shows the growing importance of social networking to women’s online experience.

You might not realize it but it's women above 45 years who are behind the greatest proportion of growth for social networking sites at the moment, in terms of both visits and time spent on the sites. They have similar reach and usage as the women 25-34 and 35-44. It is the users between the age of 15-24 who have the highest reach and the heaviest usage. However, all groups are spending a significant amount of their total online time on social activities.

Globally, Facebook is still the most popular social network but regional social networks have great appeal eg Mixi (Japan,) Vkontakte (Russia), StudiVZ (Germany), CyWorld (South Korea).

This trend has important implications for all e-commerce sites. If you can give your female customer an element of social networking, you will have an advantage. And actually you can: It's called Social Commerce. Read my blog post about Social Commerce and make your site more appealing to women.